GODZILLA EVENT TIMELINE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE FOR THE G-FAN, AND THE POSSIBLE PLACE FOR GODZILLA AND THE GREATER TOHO UNIVERSE(S) WITHIN THE NEWTONIAN FRAMEWORK

This particular section of the site will deal with the chronological sequence of events known (or strongly suspected) to have occurred in the two alternate universes encompassing the dai kaiju related incidents that were depicted in the Showa Era and Heisei Era Godzilla movie series. In each timeline, the events seen in the first G-film (Godzilla, King of the Monsters) did indeed take place, but afterwards the two universes somehow diverged into completely seperate timelines with disparate events and versions of the various beings within. Exactly how this divergence occurred will be left to the speculations of a future, "science-driven" essay. Many other such speculatory essays can be found regularly in the pages of G-FAN magazine. [For those who want to see a timeline dealing with the release schedule of all of the Godzilla movies in the U.S. of the "real" universe to date elsewhere on this site, then please go here.]

The following two timelines will provide a chronology of dates, events, various speculations (which any individual G-fan may or may not agree with), and the movie or TV series where the event was depicted onscreen in the Showa Era and Heisei Era continuity, respectively. The latter two film series each represent a sequence of events set in one, consistent continuity. The third, Millennium (or "Alternate Reality") Godzilla film series (currently ongoing as of this writing) features a version of Godzilla that is part of a distinct timeline for each movie within that series, all of which have only the general series of events depicted in the first G-film as part of their respective timeline's canon. As such, none of those films' events can be included in the bottom two chronologies, as it is incumbent with the very theme of the new G-series that each movie represents an entirely different timeline unique to that one film, and as a result, each movie would require a seperate timeline of events [though this may change in time, as the upcoming 2003 G-film evidently occurs on the same timeline as the 2002 film, and is reportedly a direct sequel to it, so we must wait and see precisely what direction Toho ultimately chooses to take the Millennium G-Series].
Hence, putting together timelines for the Millennium G-series would be difficult in some cases, a good example of which is GODZILLA 2000, where little of that universe's history prior to the year 1999 was disclosed within the movie itself, whereas it would be simple for Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, as the prologue of that film outlined Godzilla's history in that timeline in great detail (and is described in the synopsis for that film in its respective entry elsewhere on this site). I may include entries for the unique timelines present within each of the G-films of the Millennium Series in the future, but for now, this section will deal exclusively with the series of events as seen onscreen in the Showa and Heisei Era films, both of which occurred within the framework of a single consistent timeline.

Please also note that the following two timelines will only consider events that were depicted on the big screen or the small screen; events that occurred in novels, short stories, comic books, or manga relating to these two continuities will not be included at this time, and it should be mentioned that the occurrance of events outside the aforementioned films and TV series are suspect, and likely occurred in one of the numerous alternate realities where a version of Godzilla exists. This includes the many wonderful short stories composed by author Skip Peel for G-FAN magazine through the years, which attempt to place the events in all Godzilla film series, as well as those of both Gamera film series, into one consistent timeline. The events seen in the various films likely occurred in many alternate realities where other unique events took place in addition to them, where familiar events occurred differently, where the sequence of events may have occurred in a different order, or where some events occurred, but others didn't. The range of possible and "actual" alternate timelines loom far and wide, and virtually every possibility conceivable probably has "occurred" 'somewhere' in some alternate reality, and as such, no Godzilla story, regardless of what medium it appeared in, whether scribed by a "professional" or a "fan" writer, need be automatically relegated to the waste basket in an absolute sense. Thus, all fans and writers of these genres need to read the stories and watch the films with a bit of charitability in mind, rather than spoil the wealth by arguing with each other incessantly in a less than respectful manner regarding which events took place in what universe, what year they took place, and which author's stories should be considered "valid" or canonical, and whose shouldn't, in regards to any respective timeline.

Also not included below will be the five novels (one as yet unpublished) written by Marc Cerasini, the first of these being GODZILLA RETURNS, published in 1996. This story was very well-received by G-fans [the three subsequent books in the series, GODZILLA 2000, GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END, and GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS received a less enthusiastic response from G-fandom, and a fifth book by Cerasini, GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT, remains unpublished to date], and it was clear that those stories took place in yet another alternate reality similar to the many examples seen within the Millennium Era G-Film Series.

[It's been postulated by Wold Newton scholar Chuck Loridans that the events depicted in Cerasini's GODZILLA RETURNS took place within the Wold Newton Universe, and that it served as the WNU analogue to the events seen in the film Godzilla 1985, the latter of which took place in the Heisei Toho Universe, and this author agrees with Chuck's assessment that the events of at least Cerasini's first novel, along with the 'universal G-events' seen in the first G-film (Godzilla, King of the Monsters, 1954), are part of the WNU canon; see below for much more info on the Wold Newton Universe].

Once again, the general series of events of the first G-film occurred in Cerasini's timeline, but no other Godzilla-related event as seen in the Showa or Heisei Era movie series took place there, as after Godzilla's initial attack on Tokyo in 1954, the Kaiju King wasn't seen again in Cerasini's universe [i.e., the Wold Newtwon Universe] until 1996 (after the events depicted in the first two G-film series; it should also be noted that Cerasini's second Godzilla novel, GODZILLA 2000, had nothing to do with the G-film of the same name that was released in America after the book was published). Once again, this is not to say that the events chronicled within Cerasini's four published books are "invalid," just that they didn't occur in the two particular universes that are chronologized below (but at least the first novel in the series did "actually occur" in the WNU, and as Chuck Loridans has suggested to me, was likely the WNU's analogue of the events depicted in Godzilla 1985 within the Heisei Toho Universe).

The many appearances of Godzilla in the Dark Horse Universe also cannot be a part of the Showa or Heisei continuity (though the version of the Big G in the Dark Horse Universe is more or less identical to that of the Heisei Era incarnation, and the series even featured an alternate reality version of the Showa Universe alien race known as the Simeons; see the Showa Series timeline), and the same holds true for the various versions of the Atomic Titan to be seen in the many Japanese manga that have featured disparate incarnations of the character over the past few decades (including but not limited to adaptations of the films). And of course, the version of Godzilla seen in his own Marvel Comic during the late 1970s very clearly took place within the "mainstream" Marvel Universe, and those events obviously cannot be included in the Showa or Heisei canon, and taken alone, the 24 issues of Godzilla, King of the Monsters published by Marvel over a two year period must be relegated to one of the numerous alternate universes as seen in the Millennium Era Series (and this because there were numerous regular appearances by very familiar personages from the Marvel Universe, including the long-defunct super-hero team known as the Champions, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers; additionally, long-time members of the international super-espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., specifically Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan, Gabriel "Gabe" Jones, and Jimmy Woo, were regular characters in the series who appeared in nearly every issue; further, various nemeses of the Big G who appeared in that series, such as the villainous costumed geneticist Dr. Demonicus, the gigantic hairy hominid called Yetrigar, and the colossal samurai robot Red Ronin [obviously modeled along the lines of the then popular giant robotic heroes of Japanese origin known as the Shogun Warriors] have appeared subsequently in other stories set within the Marvel Universe).

Also, the various exploits of the Big G depicted within the many Godzilla video games would also not fit into either of the two chronologies below, as all contained storylines, sometimes quite threadbare, that obviously places them within alternate universes. The sole possible exception I have been able to find thus far is the storyline that appeared in the Godzilla, Monster of Monsters! video game released by the first Nintendo home arcade system in 1989, as it featured Godzilla and an adult Mothra coralled by a revived Earth Defense Force into countering a renewed attack by the Xians sometime in the early to mid 21st century, with several of these attacks being directed against a number of Earth bases situated on the planet Mars. The latter video game included Godzilla and Mothra being pitted against various other Toho dai kaiju who were forced into the service of the Xians, the roster consisting of Varan, Gigan, Mogera, Gezorah, Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, and King Ghidora. As such, this adventure may possibly describe an "untold" adventure of the Showa versions of Godzilla and Mothra (along with other Toho dai kaiju) that took place after their appearances in Destroy All Monsters (1968; though the story featured within that film actually took place in the year 1999). As the version of every character and the basic tone and storyline of that video game were all consistant with the Showa Series continuity [even if their kaiju opponents featured in the game may not actually have been the same creatures they fought in the "real" event], and the Xians are known to be a part of that universe, I have decided to tentatively include the general series of events depicted in that video game's storyline as part of the Showa Series timeline down below, as it likely occurs in at least one of that timeline's alternate futures.

Another good example of the oft-stated 'invalidation' concern is DC Comics' introduction of the concept of hypertime, which first appeared in their 1990s SUPERBOY comic. There it was revealed that the numerous events depicted in DC Comics during the Silver Age of Comics, mostly in regards to the continuities of Superman and Wonder Woman (albeit much more far-reaching than that upon closer examination) that were "invalidated" by the mega history-altering cosmic epic chronicled in the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS series (published from 1985-early '86), could still be applicable to countless alternate realities that encompass the incomprehensibly vast quantum-strata of hypertime. The continued existence of alternate realities connected to the "mainstream" DC Universe have also been confirmed or implied in the KINGDOM mini-series and the large library of often interesting "Elseworlds" one-shots or mini-series that feature various DC Universe characters within radically different contexts and time periods, sometimes alongside characters outside the "mainstream" DC Universe, including dimensional counterparts of Captain America, Dracula, and Tarzan, and which provide firm examples of the limitless directions that characters and events can take within the endless panorama of alternate universes.

The events depicted in the two continuities seen below (each charted seperately) are designed to be of interest to both G-fans and possibly literary historians and enthusiasts of the Wold Newton Universe. The latter fascinating continuity concept was first explicitely postulated by the talented science fiction writer Phillip Jose' Farmer in his two ground-breaking novels TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE, first published in 1975 and 1976, respectively. This amazingly far-reaching literary concept suggests that numerous characters from various mostly adventure-related literary genres (sci-fi, horror, straight action, espionage, detective, westerns, martial arts, though also including genres such as standard drama and even erotica) all exist within a single consistant universe, and many such extraordinary individuals all claim certain common and interconnected genetic familial lineages, all of which results from a few members of the Wold Newton Family lineages whom were present near the crash of a mysterious meteor in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, in 1795. The strange radiations of that meteor irradiated and strengthened the genetic stock of the individuals present, thus causing either themselves (in the case of Sir Percy Blakney, who later became the Scarlet Pimpernel), or their later progeny, to give birth to individuals who grew up to become some of the most famous, brilliant, and physically impressive adventurers, inventors, scientists, detectives, masked vigilantes, super-heroes (relatively rare but evidently extant in the Newtonian Universe), espionage agents, aviators, explorers, and in some cases, criminal masterminds, to be seen in that universe. Just a few examples of the many illustrious members of the Newtonian Universe include (in no particular order) such famous personages as the Scarlet Pimpernal (Sir Percy Blakney, perhaps the great-granddaddy of all modern masked crimefighters), Tarzan, Doc Savage, Zorro, the Shadow, G-8 (later called Captain Midnight), Fu Manchu, Allan Quartermain, Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde, Tom Sawyer, the Invisible Man (Dr. John "Jack" Hawley Griffin), the Spider, John Carter of Mars (a terraformed Mars of an alternate reality, that is), Captain Nemo (a.k.a., Prince Dakkar), Robur the Conqueror, Sherlock Holmes, the latter's brother Mycroft Holmes, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Shang-Chi (who is also a mainstay of the Marvel Universe), Prof. George Challenger, Dr. Herbert West, Prof. James Moriarity, Horatio Hornblower, Charlie Chan, Sam Spade, Randolph Carter, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Nero Wolfe, and the Time Traveller from H.G. Wells's novel The Time Machine (and later postulated to be the great-grandfather and inspiration of the Warren/Harris Comics' time-traveling super-hero Restin Dane, a.k.a., the Rook).
In addition, various famous literary personages from the far distant past, long before that fateful meteor crash in Wold Newton in the final decade of the 18th century, have been added to the Newtonian Universe continuity, including many of the famous characters created by the popular early 20th century fantasy writer Robert E. Howard, including King Kull, the heroic warlord from the ancient Atlantean kingdom of Valusia; Conan the barbarian, the Cimmerian warrior from the Hyborean Age, that bygone era of human history following the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria/Mu over 10,000 years ago; the female barbarian adventurer Red Sonja, who also hails from the Hyborean Age; and the late 17th century Puritan adventurer/monster hunter Solomon Kane.
Further, the writings of early 20th century horror scribe H.P. Lovecraft, particularly the entirety of the Cthulu Mythos and the infamous book of dark magick connected to the latter pantheon of 'Elder Gods' known as the Necronomicon, have been incorporated into the Wold Newton Universe continuity, and Lovecraft also introduced us to two prominent Newtonian characters in the course of his writings, Randolph Carter and Dr. Herbert West (in THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER and "Herbert West, Reanimator," respectively). The characters and events of literary classics such as IVANHOE and MOBY DICK have also been attributed to being part of the Wold Newton Universe canon, as have alternate reality versions of legendary historical figures who may or may not have existed in the "real" universe, such as King Arthur Pendragon and Robin Hood.

Much evidence from within the numerous texts detailing the exploits of the aformentioned characters, and their various appearances in other mediums, such as pulp magazines, old time radio, movies, TV series, comic books, manga, and even video games have been meticulously researched by subsequent Wold Newton literary historians, and other characters and places are routinely pulled into the framework of the Newtonian cosmos due to a crossover appearance with a well established inhabitant of that universe being uncovered (provided it doesn't conflict in a major way with the established continuity of said character). Additionally, there are many alternate universes (such as the Marvel, DC, Wildstorm, Dark Horse, and various Toho Universes) that the Newtonian Universe seems to be "branched" over to in some manner, and this has resulted in various characters indigenous to the Newtonian Universe having either close analogues or near-identical counterparts in those other universes [as a few examples of the latter, there is possibly a Doc Savage extant in the Marvel Universe, there is definately a version of Dracula nearly identical to the version found in Bram Stoker's famous novel who exists in the Marvel Universe, a version of Fu Manchu definately exists there, and the events depicted in H.G. Wells's novel War of the Worlds took place in a few alternate realities directly connected to the Marvel Universe, thus dragging a version of the octopoid "Martians" from the WNU into the "mainstream" Marvel Universe, or at least various alternative futures branching off from it, and a warrior known as Killraven resulted from a particular alternate future of the early 21st century where the "Martians" once again invaded the Earth, this time successfully (another alternate future version of this "Martian"-conquered Marvel-Earth appeared in the AVENGERS FOREVER series); the X-Men of the "mainstream" Marvel Universe have also crossed over with the Star Trek Universe on three notable occasions (seen in the STAR TREK/X-MEN one-shot comic "Star Trex," the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION/X-MEN one-shot comic "Second Contact," and the Star Trek: The Next Generation/X-Men novel PLANET X; see below to see how the Star Trek characters fit into the Wold Newton Universe].

There are also several characters culled from the rich tapestry of prose literature, moviedom, comic strips, comic books, television, and video games that have been added to the Newtonian Universe upon intensive research, including Colonel Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers of the two interrelated 1970s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman (followed by three made-for-TV movies in the late 1980s); the enhanced, mind-enslaved soldiers from the Universal Soldier series of films; Terry and the Pirates from the long-running newspaper strip; Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the popular eponymous TV series that began in the late 1990s (later to branch into comics), along with the entire character cast of the spin-off series Angel; the 19th century Cartwright family of adventureous frontiersmen featured in the Bonanza TV series of the late 1950s-early 1970s (along with its later early '00s prequel series Ponderosa); adolescent adventurer Jonny Quest from the eponymous late 1960s animated TV series, along with his brilliant scientist/adventurer/explorer father, Dr. Benton Quest (as well as his slightly older sister, Jessie Quest, who first appeared in the late 1990s animated sequel series Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures [the late 1980s animated TV series The New Adventures of Jonny Quest and two subsequent made-for-TV movies, Jonny's Golden Quest and Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects, are considered non-canon in the Jonny Quest saga]; the formidable British secret agents John Steed and Mrs. Emma Peel from The Avengers 1960s TV series; the intrepid reporter who tracks down horrific paranormal phenomena known as Carl Kolchak from the 1974 TV series The Night Stalker (as well as two previous made-for-TV movies and subsequent stories, comic books, and novels); the FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who track bizarre paranormal phenomena in The X Files TV series from the 1990s; Lara Croft, the tomb-hunting adventurer/archeologist extraordinaire from the ultra-popular Tomb Raider video game series, and subsequent comic book from Image Comics and motion picture franchise; and also the characters and events seen in such unusual TV series as Quantum Leap and Now And Again [I can't wait to see the Wold Newton scholars eventually finding a way to pull into Newtonian continuity the great but ratings starved 'dramedic' TV series Do Over, about a 34 year old man whose psyche is sent back into his own adolescent body circa the year 1981 via a freak accident, thereby granting him the opportunity to live the events of his life over again with the full knowledge of his "adult" self, enabling him to both create a new timeline and live out a major wish fulfillment fantasy of many of us].

Also brought into the Wold Newton framework is the entirety of the alternate futures of the mid-22nd Century, late 23rd century, and late 24th century (and beyond) that encompass the Star Trek Universe.

[The recent two EUGENICS WARS novels, detailing the rise and fall of the genetically enhanced would-be dictator Khan Noonian Singh during the 1990s of the Star Trek Universe, first seen in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed," and who met his final fate in the motion picture Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, made numerous references, some of them fairly blatant, alluding to various characters and events from the Wold Newton Universe of the late 1960s to the late 1990s, and Ben Cartwright and his family were already posited to be part of the same timeline featuring the Star Trek franchise of characters, as well as Sherlock Holmes, whom the part human Spock implied to be an ancestor of his based on an offhand but overt comment in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the Vulcan scientist even used some of the Great Detective's deductive reasoning techniques to deduce the true nature of the menace they were facing, i.e., an experimental Klingon battle cruiser that could fire its ion cannons while having its cloaking device activated.]

Moreover, several dimensional counterparts of various Marvel and DC Universe characters also exist in the Wold Newton Universe, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (and thus most of the elements of Paradise Island/Themyscira), the Unknown Soldier, the Creature Commandos, Plastic Man, the Elongated Man (who is evidently Plastic Man's son in the Wold Newton Universe, but not in the "mainstream" DC Universe), Captain America, the Sub-Mariner/Aquaman (one and the same in the WNU continuity), and apparently Spider-Man and the Hulk, though as I stated above, super-heroes of the 20th Century variety appear to be quite rare in the WNU, and their influence in that reality do not seem to have had nearly as much an effect on that world's history as their counterparts have in other universes (such as the "mainstream" Marvel and DC Universes), and the metahumans within the Newtonian Universe appear to have significantly lower power levels and less grand careers than their counterparts in other universes.

Additionally, other characters from outside of the WNU proper, such as Dr. Who, the Time Lord from the planet Galifrey, appears to have traveled to and influenced certain events in the WNU, and various bizarre pocket universes, such as Oz and Wonderland, also have tenuous connections to the characters of the WNU.

And of course...Godzilla and his cinematic bretheren have also been posited to exist in the Wold Newton Universe, as the events of Marc Cerasini's series of G-novels have already been pulled into the continuity of the "mainstream" Newtonian Universe. In fact, Godzilla's multiversal presence seems to branch out far indeed, as he has a counterpart in the Marvel Universe and in the Dark Horse Universe (as well as having either direct counterparts or close analogues in other universes). The Wildstorm Universe has dimensional branches with many other realities, including the Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Wold Newton Universe, and the various Toho Universes, since close analogues of characters and/or events from all of those aforementioned alternate realities quite obviously exist there (a version of Gotham City exists in the Wild Storm Universe, and the Planetary crew crossed over with numerous alternate reality versions of Batman in the 2003 PLANETARY/BATMAN: NIGHT ON EARTH crossover one-shot; more on Planetary below). Though many analogues can be seen in Wildstorm Comics such as THE AUTHORITY (e.g., Apollo and Midnighter, the homosexual super-heroic couple who are obvious analogues to the allegedly heterosexual Superman and Batman), and the outre' comic book series PLANETARY, featuring a trio of metahuman archeologists uncovering the secret history of the Earth within the Wildstorm Universe, is nearly overflowing with other-universe analogues, including blatant dimensional variants of many of the Wold Newton Universe characters appearing in the first issue (along with a truly alien, otherdimensonal version of the Justice League of America), and in the second issue, very obvious analogues of the Toho monsters (or at least corpses thereof) and Monster Island appeared there (specifically, of Godzilla, Mothra [adult stage], King Ghidorah, and Rodan). However, since the rather uneventful history and sad and equally uneventful final fate of those Wildstorm dai kaiju were quite different from the extremely eventful effect they had on the world in the standard Toho Universes, the Wildstorm Universe continuity is clearly a seperate timeline unto itself, and cannot be figured in either of the chronologies listed below (though they may fit somewhere in the less exciting reaches of the Millennium G-Film Series).

Hence, the following timelines may prove useful to present and future Wold Newton literary historians, and I will leave it to those esteemed gentlemen and ladies to do most of the research in terms of figuring out which of the following events outside of those seen in the first G-film (which appears to be a near-universal constant in all universes where Godzilla exists) may or may not fit into the broader scheme of the Wold Newton Universe, or at least those of the many alternate universes that "connect" to it at various quantum points.

Finally, for the benefit of both G-fans and Wold Newton scholars, there are numerous paranormal and otherwise extraordinary non-dai kaiju related events that seem to have occurred in the Toho Universes that would be of general interest to adventure, sci-fi, and horror film enthusiasts, and would also fit very well into the Wold Newton framework, and further study along those lines may well be warrented here to determine determine if analogues of these events have indeed occurred in the WNU (which this author believes). There were many such films produced by Toho, mostly during the earlier Showa Era of G-films that are quite likely to have occurred in the Showa Era Toho Universe, and, as noted above, could also have event and character analogues in the WNU. These are Toho's "mutant" series of movies, most of which do not really merit a review anywhere on this site due to their lack of dai kaiju, but which definately deserve honorable mention somewhere on this site.

These movies include The Invisible Man, the first of Toho's "mutant" series of films (released in Japan in 1954, and the only one of these movies that never had an American version, not even on home video), which told the tale of a criminal with an invisiblity serum who hid from the authorities within the role of a clown at a Japanese circus [is it possible that the serum could have been a derivative of the invisibility chemical created by Dr. Hawley Griffen from H.G. Wells's novel, also titled The Invisible Man? This is an especially relevant question since not only Dr. Griffin's character, but also a veritable army of characters utilizing invisibility-producing chemicals, such as the super-hero known as the Invisible Agent during World War II (who was even mentioned in Jeff Rovin's novel RETURN OF THE WOLF MAN), the main protagonist of the 1970s American TV series The Invisible Man, and much later films featuring characters who utilize personal invisibility as a weapon, The Hollow Man, have been pulled into the Wold Newton Universe, as have the two 31st century super-heroes called Invisible Kid, who were both members of the Legion of Super-Heroes]; Half-Human: The Story of the Abominable Snowman (1955), about an expedition to Japan's snowy mountainous regions that results in the group facing the fury of a powerful 10-foot tall yeti-like creature following the death of the latter's offspring due to the actions of certain members of the expedition [the American version of this film was extensively altered, with large amounts of new footage featuring American actors replacing the Japanese cast, and the storyline was changed almost beyond recognition, in a manner very similar to what was done with Toho's 1958 dai kaiju film Varan the Unbelievable; the Japanese version of this movie was eventually pulled from the video shelves in Japan due to claims that a certain ethnic minority group on the island nation were treated in a derogatory manner within the film, and as a result, the Japanese version is now extremely hard to come by, and not even Video Daikaiju has copies of it available for purchase]; The H-Man (1958), about human beings who are transformed into human-eating gelatinous creatures known as the 'Liquid People' after being exposed to radiation [damn, radiation certainly is a major troublemaker in those alternate universes! Luckily, in our own reality, the only thing radiation exposure to humans and animals seems to cause is radiation sickness, cancer, and birth defects, but not monstrous mutations!]; The Secret of the Telegian (1960), about a criminal who acquires technology that enables him to quickly teleport from place to place in order to commit his crimes and stay ahead of the police [and how often does teleportation technology figure into Wold Newton continuity?]; The Human Vapor (1960), about a criminal who gains the capacity to transform into an intangible, gaseous state at will (through which he can asphixiate human beings) after a scientific experiment upon his person goes awry; Attack of the Mushroom People (1963), a.k.a. Matango, regarding a crew of people who are marooned on a small South Seas island and find not giant monsters this time around, but instead an equally deadly species of mysterious fungi known as the Matango which, when ingested by humans, slowly erodes their sanity and physically transforms them into anthropomorphic fungoid creatures [the Matango are possibly the result of the many atomic bomb tests conducted by America in the South Pacific of the Toho Universes that created so many of the dai kaiju that later plagued the island nation as well as many of these small South Seas atolls, and due to this direct connection, I will include the events of this film in the Showa timeline down below], and the latter chilling psychological thriller was directed by Ishiro Honda, the great auteur who helmed many of the early and best of the G-films.

Then, we get to the vampire/Dracula trilogy of films that Toho produced in the early 1970s, which will be of interest to both horrorphiles and Wold Newton scholars for obvious reasons. These three films, all of which appear to follow one consistent continuity (if a bit loosely), were all obviously inspired by the many Dracula films produced by Britain's Hammer Productions, as these movies featured a host of elements taken from the Hammer Dracula flicks, including liberal amounts of bloody violence, nudity, explicit sexual content (all three of which were toned down quite a bit for the American versions), the connection between the vampiric bloodlust and sexual drives, and a plethora of "innocent" females victimized by a suave male vampiric antagonist, and they also combine modern Western literary notions of the vampire with the much different Eastern lore regarding the parasitic walking dead (the vampires of Toho's Dracula trilogy do not hop, unlike the standard vampire in Eastern films, further underscoring the Western influences upon these movies). The three films encompassing the Toho Dracula series are The Vampire Doll (1970), Lake of Dracula (1971), and Evil of Dracula (1974) (even the titles of those films look like they could have been culled from a Hammer vampire flick!). Of course, those monster and Dracula fans who watch these three movies will realize quite quickly that a Japanese version of the infamous Count and previous Prince of Wallachia appears nowhere within these celluloid misfits, and the male imperious vampiric central character generally goes unnamed, even if he very obviously comes off as a poor man's version of Dracula. This quite possibly indicates that these central male vampiric antagonists may have been 'soul-clones,' or at least vampiric minions, of the great Count (i.e., 'Dracula-Prime') himself, and who were sent to various locales to create vampiric power-bases for the Lord of the Vampires, as was the case with Baron Meinster, the main vampire antagonist of Hammer's semi-classic Brides of Dracula (1960).

[For an indepth look at the concept of Dracula's creation of 'soul-clones,' which possess a portion of the Count's power and psyche, and generally act to carry out his own will across various areas of the globe, check out the M*O*N*S*T*A*A*H web site (the acronym stands for Maximum Observation and/or Nullification of Supernatural Terrors Autonomous Agents Headquarters), an organization of Wold Newton scholars led by the inimitable Chuck Loridans, who focus their attention primarily upon the horror-oriented aspects of the WNU, and have done extensive, often mind-boggling research to connect the various incarnations of some of literature and cinema's most famous horror denizens into a single consistent timeline, as well as to other denizens of the WNU whenever necessary (yes, believe it or not, according to these most adroit fellows, they have even uncovered a connection between Dracula's machinations and the origin of Jamie Sommers, a.k.a., the Bionic Woman!; they still have yet to find a way of including the events seen in the Castlevania series of video games into the overall continuity, however, and I look forward to them getting around to that!). The M*O*N*S*T*A*A*H crew were the first researchers, to my knowledge, to postulate the ability of the prime character of Dracula, first seen in Bram Stoker's eponymous 1897 literary classic, to create various 'soul-clones' of himself, which account for the Universal, Hammer, and many other disparate cinematic versions of the Count, and they should certainly look into the Toho trio of Dracula films to see if anything of importance can be found there regarding the more monstrous denizens of the WNU. As the previously mentioned Brides of Dracula also didn't feature any incarnation of the Count (though the presence of Drac's archnemesis Dr. Van Helsing confirmed its placement in the same universe), but did feature a minion/acolyte of the Prince of Darkness, according to the theories formed by the M*O*N*S*T*A*A*H crew it can thus be inferred that any movie or story featuring "Dracula" in the title, even if fully bereft of an appearance by the Count himself, may nevertheless indicate strong signs of the Vampire Lord's behind the scenes handiwork.

There was also a film produced by Toho called Espy (1974), a movie directed by G-film luminary Jun Fukuda and which, as the title suggests, combines strong espionage elements with psychic phenomena, and this movie was replete with all of the hard violence, intrigue, and sexually explicit content that was expected of such films during the time (but again, toned down quite a bit for its American release). This movie is considered a gem by several fans of the spy film, who applaud it for its clever inclusion of certain strange paranormal elements, and as such it may also have a firm place somewhere in the Wold Newton Universe, as well as quite likely occurring in the Showa Series continuity (psychic phenomena figured quite prominently in the Heisei Era Godzilla series, as well as superficially within the Showa Era Godzilla series), and this film should definately be seen and evaluated by Wold Newton scholars as to its possible inclusion and place within the greater scheme of things.

Two more recent "mutant" film entries, produced during the 1990s, includes The School of Ghosts franchise of films (the first one released in 1995), a horror series about a dangerous shape-shifting spectre known as the Kaidan who can raise and control the dead and manipulate reality in its immediate environs, and Parasite Eve (1997), about a powerful and deadly super-villian known as 'Mitochondria Eve,' who, as her name suggests, can control the mitochondria in the cells of her own body and of others, thus giving her a range of paranormal powers (including levitation and transformation into a fluidic state) and nasty ways of harming human beings, including taking control of their bodies, delivering electrical shocks, and causing people to burst into flame.

Additional interest to the Wold Newton scholars and pure sci-fi enthusiasts would be the straight big budget sci-fi movie The Battle in Outer Space (a semi-remake of The Mysterians [1957]) produced by Toho in 1964. Taken together, since they were culled from the same script, The Mysterians and The Battle in Outer Space are said to have been the inspiration for such ambitious space opus's as George Lucas's Star Wars quilogy and Battlestar Galactica (the latter film and subsequent TV series may possibly fit somewhere into the Wold Newton scheme), and other prominent straight sci-fi films produced by Toho include War In Space (1977) and Gunhed (1988). Also, the relatively little known Toho sci-fi/fantasy hybrid Princess From the Moon (1987) even featured a guest appearance by an aquatic dragon-like dai kaiju, though it was never officially released in the U.S. (though it was released on DVD internationally), and is currently not even available from Video Daikaiju.

It should be noted that high quality English sub-titled Japanese versions of most of the above-mentioned "mutant" films produced by Toho can be very affordably purchased at Video Daikaiju, which I recommend over renting or purchasing the generally inferior American versions of the same films available on home video in the U.S., and sometimes shown on American television.

Toho also produced a number of classic and semi-memorable epic disaster films, such as The Last War, Submersion of Japan, and The Last Days on Planet Earth. However, other than the giant mutant slugs that appeared in the last film, none of them featured dai kaiju or dealt overtly with sc-fi themes, but accentuated "realism" instead, and though they are good films in their own right, they will not be mentioned any further here.
Also, please note once more that since Toho's aforementioned "mutant" films do not have any dai kaiju guest stars, most of them will not be covered in the timelines featured below (with the exception of Attack of the Mushroom People, as the origin of the Matango likely comes from the same source as the dai kaiju of the Showa Toho Universe, i.e., the atomic bomb tests conducted by the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean during the 1940s).

As I'll expound upon in the timelines seen below, there are four individuals from the Toho Universes who are very likely of Wold Newton Family lineage, these individuals being Captain Shinguji (extraordinary soldier/adventurer/inventor; Atragon); Dr. Huu (criminal mastermind; King Kong Escapes, with a [possible] alternate reality version seen in the American King Kong animated series; Chuck Loridans has speculated that Dr. Huu's WNU counterpart may be another guise of the infamous homunculi-producting scientist Dr. Pretorius from Universal's The Bride of Frankenstein); Dr. Malik (criminal mastermind and scientific genius bar none, particularly in the realm of advanced technology and genetic engineering; Latitude Zero), and Prof. Goro Ibuki (roboticist and inventor; Godzilla vs. Megalon). There are other extraordinary human beings who have appeared in the Toho Universes who I previously suspected may have been members of the WNF lineage; however, in a discussion with a few Wold Newton scholars, they suggested to me that not every human being in that universe who possesses great intellectual and/or physical abilities need be a meteor mutant, and I have come to agree. Thus, I'm now more cautious as to which characters I may suspect of being recipients of the Wold Newton meteor enhancement. Other exceptional human beings who have appeared in the Toho films whom I now agree are less likely candidates for inclusion in the ranks of the WNF include Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (scientist; Godzilla, King of the Monsters), Agent Nambura (secret agent; Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla); and Prof. Wagura (technologist/inventor; Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla).

For those G-fans who want to check out the intricacies of the Wold Newton Universe (and I strongly recommend that you do!), there are many such sites online, but one of the best is surely Win Scott Eckert's site, which can be found here. Win's site includes links to other good Wold Newton online sources elsewhere on the Web by many other fine Wold Newton scholars, along with a plethora of well-written and fantastic articles, authored by himself and many other Wold Netwon scholars. And for those who wish to check out Chuck Loridans's excellent M*O*N*S*T*A*H web site (and again, I highly recommend that all of you do!), it can be found here.

One final note to both G-fans and Wold Newton scholars/enthusiasts who may be reading this. It should be pointed out that a version of the Frankenstein Monster as written by Mary Shelly in her famous 1818 novel FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, certainly does exist in at least the Showa Series continuity, since the creature's heart, or more likely the heart of one of the many copycat Monsters created by various later relatives of Victor Frankenstein I (such as the Monster created by Dr. Henry Frankenstein who appeared in the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 40s and later in Jeff Rovin's 1998 novel RETURN OF THE WOLF MAN, and the various Monsters created by Baron Victor Frankenstein in the Hammer Frankenstein film series) ended up in a scientific research center located within the city limits of Hiroshima just prior to that facility's destruction via the atomic bomb, which, along with a smaller "brother" bomb dropped on Nagasaki a few days later, effectively ended World War II and ushered in the "Atomic Age" in 1945, and the event relating to the monster's heart being shipped to Hiroshima is noted below in the Showa Series timeline, as well as being observed by the M*O*N*S*T*A*A*H crew on their own fastidiously researched site.

As for my source material regarding the various events mentioned below in the timelines, I will specify in parentheses after the end of each event sequence the movie (or TV show episode or video game, whatever the case may be) where the events were actually depicted onscreen. In several cases, however, (particularly in regards to the Showa timeline), numerous continuity loopholes exist, where there were obvious "untold" events that occurred, but were never depicted or adequately explained onscreen, such as how those timelines developed certain technology that does not exist in the "real" universe in the same era, the lack of information regarding the various alien races that Earth encountered in these realities that left many a viewer befuddled, and how certain very important events occurred, such as the manner in which most of Earth's known monsters ended up on Monster Island in the Showa timeline by 1969. In such cases, I had no choice but to speculate on certain unseen events in order to fill in those gaps, and where I did so, I note this in parentheses at the end of each speculation; I will put a speculatory explanation in brackets if it occurs within the middle of the text. In addition, when I try to account for certain inexplicable gaps in logic regarding various events, or conflicting accounts between the Japanese and American versions of the same event, I will make what I believe to be a plausible explanation for this.

Since my speculations have admittedly not been confirmed by anyone working for Toho, I fully admit that they are nothing more than speculation, and that several G-fans, and many Wold Newton scholars and enthusiasts who have an interest in the many worlds of Godzilla, will likely disagree with me on certain of my speculations (if not all of them!). They are, of course, entitled to these disagreements, and their individual speculations are worth considering as much as my own.

Much of the information you will find below in the timelines comes from my own observations, of course, though a good portion of my researched source material was derived from the wonderful kaiju web site Rodan's Roost, which can be found right here. I am thus greatly indebted to the fine work done by Morgoth and Sauron, the webmasters of that site!

Also, please keep in mind that the timelines below, particularly the Showa timeline, will focus primarily upon the events that occurred on the planet Earth in those universes, and will not go into great detail regarding the lengthy histories of the various alien races that interacted with that Earth over the years. For the most part, I will limit the history of those alien races (the Mysterians, the Xians, the Yog entities, the Nebulans, the Garogain the Simeons, and the Kilaaks) to the incidents where they interracted with Earth, and including additional events in the history of these alien races only when I deem them warrented or necessary to the comprehension of the nature of these alien races for the reader's benefit. I want the timelines to be as complete as possible, but at the same time, I want to avoid making them unnecessarily convoluted and confusing, and thus so reader-unfriendly that a good number of readers routinely feel the need to skip over large portions of the text while perusing the timeline info (something they are quite likely to do anyway, given the length of the timelines, but that is perfectly fine, since these timelines are designed to be simply a reference source, and not a story or essay). Please also note that relatively scant information was revealed about these alien races in the films, and other Toho Universe historians and G-fans have already expanded on their back story based upon logical observations and conclusions after watching the films, as well as occasionally asking Toho for input here and there to insure that the information they speculated upon was actually officially part of the Toho Universe canon. The best article I have read thus far concerning the back story of all of these aliens as extrapolated upon by G-fans was the one written by J.D. Lees and Jeff Rebner, and published in G-FAN magazine #49. Since most of the observations and conclusions made by J.D. and Jeff in that article are, in my opinion, entirely sound and logical based upon the available evidence, I have no reason to contradict what they wrote, and I will thus base much of my information in the Showa timeline below (as well as in the Glossary and film reviews) upon the information they provided in their aforementioned article, but adding a few significant details here and there to clear up a loophole or two that still happened to be present (such as the implications that the Xians and the Kilaaks were indigenous to Earth's solar system, something I wholeheartedly disagree with for many logistical reasons).

Also, please note that I am further indebted to Wold Newton historian Mark Brown for his ruminations and speculations in regards to ancient Muan science being the culprit behind the numerous, often extra-large dinosaurs and other huge and unusual animals existing alongside them on various islands located in the South Pacific. Though I have tweaked and extrapolated on his ideas a bit, I believe that his insights along these lines are entirely plausable, and as such, I have incorporated the basic gist of his speculations and musings, which he has backed up by numerous literary and film sources that he researched, into both Godzilla timelines seen below. For those who want the full background on Mark's ideas, and to see his article that inspired me to utilize them in these event timelines, be sure to read his article postulating the reason behind the existence of so many surviving, ultra-large dinosaurs on South Seas islands, which can be found via this link.
Please note that Mark's article was written in an attempt to fit several events from numerous different literary and film sources into a single consistent continuity (including events that occurred in the DC Universe and the Showa Toho Universe), and this type of 'continuity overload' is rather common among many Wold Newton scholars. I'm not saying that all of these sources may not, in fact, have actually "occurred" in some form or another in the "mainstream" Wold Newton Universe. I am saying, however, that I also believe that Mark's excellent explanation for the dinosaur-inhabited islands in the South Pacific may have occurred over a large continuum of alternate realities, and as I said above, some events that occurred in both Toho timelines seen below may have occurred in some form or another in the WNU, whereas various events from the latter universe (and other alternate universes) may not have occurred in the "mainstream" Showa and Heisei Toho universes. Writers and fans are always free to discard or retain what they choose when they are forumulating their own timelines and theories regarding what events did or didn't happen in any given fictional universe, and again, they are not worth having nasty flame wars with each other over since, admittedly, these are ultimately mere ideas that have no true concrete impact upon the "real" world in which we all live (unlike arguments and discussions of a political nature, but let's not even go there!).
Further, one of the most notable bits of tweaking to Mark's theories on my part is my hypothesis that the artificially created dinosaurs and other unusual giant creatures were likely to have been bred by the Muans for use as formidable bio-weapons against the Atlanteans, whom they often vied with for control over the world many millennia ago in various universes, as well as pure exercises in learning to control and manipulate biological evolution. Mark speculates that these creatures were created by Muan science for the purpose of being used as mighty beasts of burden, which may indeed have been true in some cases, but I doubt this can serve as an explanation for every, or even the majority, of instances behind these genetically engineered animals from being created, because the many dinosaur and other gigantic life forms produced by Muan science were just too diverse for such a simple purpose IMO, and their often inherently aggressive nature [remember the incongruously aggressive and human-attacking brontosaurus from the original King Kong (1933), not to mention how aggressive the giant octopi are, (see King Kong vs. Godzilla, Frankenstein Conquers the World (Japanese laser disc and DVD versions only), War of the Gargantuas, and the many comic book examples, including in a segment of the "Mystery Island" series in DC's STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES?), which is quite unlike their shy naturally occurring bretheren]. Also, certain creations of Muan science such as Megalon was clearly designed to be a powerful bio-weapon for the purpose of warfare.

I also have my own related theories regarding the scientifically inexplicable occurrances of giant insects, arachnids, and crustaceans often seen in both the Wold Newton and Toho Universes, and how such creatures can exist when science says they can't for several reasons related to arthropod physiology, without having to rely entirely upon the simple explanation that asserts "the laws of physics are different in those universes" (even though this is certainly the case).
I just want to make it clear that credit for the basic idea of ancient Muan science being behind the 20th century occurrances of surviving dinosaurs and other strange giant animals on various South Seas locations in certain alternate universes must go to Mark Brown based upon his individual research, and not myself or my own research, and all G-fans who care about the broader issues of continuity and logic should appreciate his contributions to this former conundrum.

Also, please note that I have attempted to fill in the various gaps of logic and plot inconsistancies to be found in the various source material that I sometimes poked fun at in my synopses and reviews of the G-films found elsewhere on this site. Again, these speculatory musings can be found in brackets throughout the text of the timelines.

Finally, I'm quite sure that there will turn out to be certain factual errors (as well as the occasional spelling and grammatical errors and those ever-annoying typos) to be found in the timelines below, and as such, like every other section on my site, they will be summarily corrected once they are discovered (I review every entry in every section on my site on a regular basis for signs of any type of error or aesthetic shortcoming).
So now that all of my introductory exposition is out of the way, feel free to move on to the timelines themselves.